Stop blaming Republicans for our mass shooting tragedies

Calls of hypocrisy leveled against the NRA after announcing guns won’t be allowed at a planned speech given by Vice President Mike Pence to gun enthusiasts.

Buzz60

On the morning of July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield, headed for his summer vacation, entered the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station. As Garfield walked through the front door, he was approached by Charles Guiteau, who fired a bullet that ripped through the president’s right arm.

As Garfield turned and yelled, “My God! What is this?” Guiteau fired another shot that entered through Garfield’s back and settled behind his pancreas. The president would suffer from his wounds for months before finally succumbing to his injuries in late September.

Christian Schneider

Christian Schneider

File

In retrospect, all the warning signs of an assassination attempt by Guiteau were obvious. He had spent months obsessed with trying to meet Garfield in order to secure a job with the Republican president’s administration, and he was a well-known scam artist who used religion to steal money from loved ones. One doctor who had examined Guiteau, noting his "explosion of emotional feeling," strongly advised he be put in an asylum immediately.

And yet, despite these well-known concerns, Guiteau was able to stroll into John O’Meara’s gun shop and buy a self-cocking .44 caliber British Bulldog handgun and bullets for $10. He believed God wanted him to kill the president to give him the publicity he needed to sell his largely plagiarized religious book, "The Truth: A Companion to the Bible."

However, noticeably absent among the American public in 1881 was any feeling that either Congress or the president was culpable for the tragedy. There was no public outcry about federal gun laws or background checks — the blame was squarely on Charles Guiteau, and nobody else. Indeed, a chant of “lynch him!” was joined by a group of angry black men, as Garfield was a fierce abolitionist who fought for African-American equality throughout his life.

Contrast the reaction to any historical tragedy — even if it clearly could have been avoided — to the finger-pointing that occurs now in the aftermath of any horrible event.

On the morning of April 22, a gunman opened fire in a Nashville Waffle House, killing four customers. Hours later, with the gunman still at large, Democrat Ted Lieu, of California, tweeted to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, asking when he would “stop silencing” them and allow them to debate gun safety measures in the House. “You're quitting,” Lieu wrote. “You no longer need to be beholden to @NRA.”

While Lieu’s tweet is a despicable piece of political opportunism, it’s hardly unique. CBS News’ John Dickerson wrote a recent column in The Atlantic that ran through many of the disasters that have been laid at the feet of political leaders. Dickerson notes, for instance, how President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 weighed down his presidency and how the British Petroleum oil spill in 2010 was labeled “Obama’s Katrina.” The idea of president as magical national caretaker, capable of foreseeing any tragedy — man-made, natural, or otherwise — has taken hold.

In large part, this is the fault of politicians themselves. At various points during his campaign, President Donald Trump promised to fix virtually every aspect ailing every American — everyone would have health care, Social Security would survive without cuts to the program, the Middle East could be bombed into a lasting peace, African-Americans would prosper like never before, Mexico would pay for the wall. And of course, Trump promised to put a stop to the “American carnage,” saying his administration would “end this long nightmare of violence.”

Such hyperbole invites blame, but it doesn’t mean blame is warranted. For one, it doesn’t help that in the era of social media that every local tragedy becomes a national one, making it seem like national crime trends are far worse than they are.

But trying to conflate Paul Ryan with a mass shooter, when it remains unclear exactly what new law would have stopped the tragedy, is appalling pandering and destructive to American discourse. On April 23, a driver plowed into a crowd in Toronto, killing 10 — is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau culpable, or are deadly acts by deranged individuals an unfortunate byproduct of living in a free society?

If there has been any lesson from the recent high-profile shootings in America, it should be that local police forces need more resources to identify who should have a gun and who shouldn’t. In many cases, the shooters have had significant contact with law enforcement and no action has been taken. Vigilance begins in our backyards, not on the White House lawn.

It is time we once again recognize that our politicians can't keep us safe from the actions of people who want to do us harm. Elected officials rarely deserve either the credit they seek or the blame they wish to elude.